HI,

Awesome post.

I have been working hard on package holiday industry site but my page rank haven't changed.

I am happy to know about how to rank a site related to package holiday industry.

Were you doing this alone?

Sounds like a lot of work for an individual to do, you had your own SEO company I assume?

I'm interested to know how you worked in the finance industry, the car rental industry and the package holiday industry, without any conflict of interest.

I mean finance is a ruthlessly competitive industry, I can't see one major finance company being remotely happy with you doing their SEO and their rivals SEO.

Or did you just keep that part quiet?

I'm interested in this point because I do the SEO for a client in a much smaller industry than that and I had to sign a contract giving them exclusivity of my services. I.e I couldn't do the same for their competition. Was I wrong to sign that contract?

I only ask because as you're someone that's "been there, done that" you'd clearly know.

Hey tpw,

You're totally right about outsourcing - in particular, I'd say from about 2003-2007 it was big business doing that... but in recent years a lot of things have been moving in-house with some of the big companies.

You'll often see - particularly in the finance serps - websites popping in and out of the top 10 then getting de-listed. This, from the research I've done, is because they've all followed the same approach to their SEO strategies and on-site strategies

A lot of SEO companies offer base packages, and when companies go for these - they all receive the same service, so you'll see some websites with links to 10/11 websites who have all had SEO work done for them by on company.

You'll still find some SEO companies outsourcing their content, but those who don't just get agencies to write the content for them (by hiring people from agencies and bringing them in-house for 6 months). The problem with this is that the writer isn't an EXPERT at what they're writing - and this will become their eventual undoing!

As for link buildling - the amount of SEO agencies who tried to sell me awful packages that just involved links from Digital point (nothing wrong with info on there, but the links are a NO GO).

There's so much I could say on this - but the one key thing I would say is that when I was working my final months for one of these big companies we started building a new site. We got someone in who knew the exact niche - and was an expert on the market, so could produce masses of unique content. We did EVERYTHING in-house, and this site ranked and is still ranking MUCH better than other sites we did.. because we were in full control.

I'd say outsourcing now makes up less than half of BIG companies SEO strategies - they need people in house!

Have I written an essay there?!

Cheers,

SEOsolo

Hey pavionjsl,

You're looking at a big task there - I'm just looking at the site from the UK and can tell you that one of the downfalls of the homepage is that it's pretty blank - but anyone could tell you that.

What you've got here is a brand. A brand with some super-strong links giving it some SERIOUS juice - like from sites such as usfigureskating.org and shakeout.org (both PR7) - not to mention this killer: flash.org - also PR7.

To rank above this site would take a fair bit of clever SEO. You need to go clean, build a brand and tie up your long-tail phrases (by that I mean rank on the things other people aren't... that's a nice way to add authority and trust to your site - just like picking up the loose pieces that no-one else can be bothered going after) While you're doing this, it should give your site time to age a bit and gain trust.

You need content, and lots of it - and do NOT farm-generate it, it needs to be interesting, factual, keyword-juicy content. Particuarly on your homepage.

Just work at it - statefarm seems pretty huge and has some amazing links going into it (links some of us can only dream about!).

Good luck!

As for what the big companies do - I can't generalise - but the one's I've worked for and with do a mixture. Content is ALWAYS important - but the argument has always been between on-site content or external content linking back. I guess you need to have a BALANCED link profile.

Profile links tend to be avoided now - just as directories do - because a lot of them are being de-listed.

Web 2.0 links are nice for smaller sites but they don't tend to offer massive benefits to bigger sites (sites I call 'brand' sites). They won't do any harm though! Just as long as they're not spammy.

Links from high-authority sites are always desirable and it can be all too easy to try and get loads of these but when link building just put yourself in Google's shoes - does it look natural that a random .com/.co.uk/.net site (a new one) has suddenly received all this attention at once? You need to slip under the radar unless you've got good reason to be getting massive links straight away (like a charity would).

PageRank is a funny thing - it means a lot to some of us SEOs, and nothing to others. Customers don't know ANYTHING about your PR so it won't affect your conversions - but it COULD affect your rankings. note the COULD there lol.

If you've got a PR4 site, chances are, it'll be pretty decent and worthy of its ranking... but if it gets hit and goes to PR2 you're in trouble. it's easy to get hung up about this - but you shouldn't. You need to be resilient about it.

So - PR is the last thing to worry about. As for its importance - well, it was named after Larry Page... so it's gotta be important hasn't it? lol.

Honestly, though, page rank is more for google's purposes than ours - unless you want to make money off the back of it.

Hey, thanks for the welcome man!

The easiest way to answer the 'BIG' question is to use the word 'research'.

You've GOT to know your niche, market and audience. When big companies build sites, they'll spend a week in the research phase (yes, a week of full days). You need to know the link profiles of all sites in top 10, you need to know word counts on homepages (or other ranking pages) - with KW densities. And you also need to monitor the search results very very closely to see who is moving around in and out of the top 10.

Have a read of some of my other replies for some more ideas too. One of my favourite techniques was manipulating what was seen as a 'natural' link - this is easy, when you really think about it!

Anchor texts is another big talking point with big companies. They've got a lot of money, so can be black hat and buy a lot of links. HOWEVER - the mistake a lot of them make is buy too many links with the same anchor text. E.G. if they want to rank for 'dogs' - they buy loads of links with 'dogs' as the anchor text... daft example but you'll get me!

It's about balance - and the balance you need will depend on your particular market.

Like I said - research is the key. How are the other sites ranking? and where might they fall down? Get critical with their strategies but also take some tips from them! They're up there for a reason, remember.

Think that's concise enough lol

Hi seosolo. Do you have a back up of clients you got from your job or are you now hunting for new clients? How are you going to get them?

If you're going after products you're going to need content. Try padding out your sub-pages with HUGE reviews of the fragrances you're selling. You need to show google you're 'the place to go' to learn about a particular thing.

Perhaps a bit of user-generated content would help? Reviews, etc. - after all, that will show you're actually a store!

Your homepage needn't have loads of content above the images, but you can put it below - I'd say 500 words + (split it down into categories/sub-headings, and it will be easier to write).

That's the 'free' way to do things, anyway. You could pay for links, but you're at more risk of being caught out as people don't tend to link to e-commerce sites naturally.

Just get content, reviews and external content out there ranking back and you'll get there eventually. It's a competitive market but be clever about it and it won't be impossible!

You're welcome - thank me in the thread if you want!

I'd say in the car rental industry it was a lot of articles about getting the best deal - but they weren't just placed on any sites, we negotiated hard to get them placed on really good sites.

You should also go after some directory links - but don't go heavy on these, be VERY selective and be prepared to pay. A lot of directories are getting de-listed because they're too saturated.

Chuck a couple of high-quality no-follows in eventually too - that will help with brand development (linking for no self-gain is seen as positive by Google).

You've just got to have an even spread of links really - don't hammer one harder than the other, keep it keyword relevant to start with, then maybe set up a few smaller sister sites and pass leads or links through with that!

Very good question! Indexing things 'faster' is a bit of a marketing perk to me - it doesn't matter to me how fast something gets indexed (as long as it does within a reasonable period of time, of course!).

When working for the package holiday firm, we used to get things indexed by throwing a few bookmarks into the link/article/page we wanted indexing.

I always used to tell myself... if it's taking AGES for google to index something, it means the googlebots haven't been crawling that site very often - which suggests this site isn't very trustworthy, and isn't too good.

You should always aim to get your own content on your own site indexed as quick as possible. Do this by showing google your site is active, and do it by driving traffic to your site. Updates (like content going on your site) are a good way to do the 'active' thing.

If something takes more than a week to index, it might not be worth the time you're spending worrying about it.

One test I used to do on blogs is take their latest post (from that day), copy and paste some of the text into google and if it shows up - that's good enough... but if it didn't show up it hasn't been indexed - so I'd put it in a 'reserve' pile for filler links.

Hope that helps

A few more questions:

1. How does google determine what is quality content - assuming they wont review manually?

2. How do you build quality backlinks back to your site with the right anchor text that gives the impression to google that the link is relevant and was built naturally by other webmasters?

3. How do you engage other bloggers/webmasters and convince them to write about our products and services?

I can't give step-by-step guides - but it depends how far away your domain is. If you're promoting golf clubs and your domain is xfdgfs.com or something random like that, you've got a HUGE task on your hands... what does xfdgfs even mean to customers?

You see BRANDS ranking but that's because they have huge press campaigns. One of the most commmon instances of people trying to promote non-keyword domains is when they pick up dropped domains - these can be quick wins for link sales, for example, but you can't really make a living out of anything on them!

Just keep plugging away and if you've not got anywhere in a month - it's not going to work. The key to success is partly in the domain name, so maybe get a different one? even if it's got a few words after it - like golfclubreviewsite.com or something like that (obviously related to your niche, though).

Thanks

Hey - thanks.

Yeah ask me anything! I can't give away all my secrets but I'll do my best to help out!

I'm sure we'll see each other around on the forum!

Interesting - what niche is this? I'd watch out for changes here over the next few months. although there's nothing wrong with guest blogging, the posts aren't really adding 'value' to the site - which is something that may get ironed out soon.

Having said that, if you can't beat them, join them... but it depends on your niche and how commercial/competitive it is!

Ok - just to clarify, different sites (different niches and different sizes) will need different campaigns. So, article building, profile building.. these sort of things MAY work to an extent.

It all depends if you've got a brand, too. But let's assume you don't and work from that.

A small site in a micro-niche won't take long to rank - providing it's not TOO competitive. Give it some welly on e-zine from different authors to build yourself a bit of a foundation. You need relevant content on there - if you're selling something, get some chunky reviews and optimize for '(enter product keyword) reviews'.

I ranked a tiny sports supplement site by using ezine, blog comments and just ONE black-hat link. It's about trust, content, and a bit of patience.

Have a look at what the guys above you are doing - that will give you a clue as to how hard you need to push your site.

The main tips I've given on here so far have been for medium-large commercial sites - ones with tough competition. So for your smaller site, just make sure your site is of use to people, try embedding some videos in there, some user-generated content - you'll soon get there.

Again, it all depends on the niche though so do your research!

You've got a wine site... that's a PERFECT opportunity to get some massive content on your site. Have a 'the ultimate guide to wine tasting guide' page. have a red vs. white wine page... basically look at what sort of keywords people are using to search and title your pages after these.

As for the giving some concrete steps - I'll give you a few steps so you can check your site and 'tick the boxes'... if you will.

1. Have you done enough research on your niche? Have you looked at what position 1 is doing differently to position 10? Why is position 12 not in the top 10? What might be stopping their progress? Are you tackling all possible keywords - and have you got pages optimized for these?

2. Once you've done all the research it's about putting it into action. If you're pushing brands get your site packed out with product reviews from these brands - think about what you would search for if you were buying a specific type of wine.

3. What are people coming to your site for? Information? To buy something? Design your site around this. If you want to sell something, drop subtle hints and buy now buttons in random places.

4. Now you've got your on-site SEO sorted, move onto off-site. For you, specifically, get some guest posts on wine websites or food websites - recipe sites might accept a guest post about 'the best wine to drink with red meat' or something like that. Make sure you're getting click-throughs on these.

5. As for links, just don't go too aggressive straight away, really think about where you can obtain them. Got for homepage only links on sites with LOADS of indexed pages (you don't want massive site-wide links just yet because you've got a specific niche).


It's hard to give any specifics without actually looking at your site and getting into the backlinks. These are just general tips - remember that everyone likes to do SEO differently, but these tips should give you a nice foundation/starting point.

Have you heard of Gary Vaynerchuk? He wrote the smash hit book "Crush It" (I highly suggest you read it by the way as there are references and stories of his wine business). He runs one of the most popular Wine sites out there and he does it using very unique techniques like a wine Internet TV show. Definitely check him out if you haven't already and run out and get that book, I suggest the audio book as it is read by him and he is a very unique and passionate guy.

Thanks GeorgR! Glad you're enjoying my input - I've only been on here a few days so still settling in.

I'll be in the war room too soon

See you around!

Hey,

Some great questions there - something to get my teeth into! Right - when it comes to domain age/link age, it would SEEM that the older the domain (providing it's a good site), the more trust it will have. This isn't FACT, it just seems that way, and it's something (unfortunately) that hasn't been given a 100% definate answer.

When you talk about short-cutting the process of age=trust, I guess you've got to ignore the age aspect completely and go for trust. You can't shortcut the age, you can pretend your site has been around for years to your customers, but Google will know (obviously!). BUT... you CAN shortcut the trust aspect. You can't fake trust, but you can definitely gain it in faster ways - and LOTS of unique content can be a great way to help this along.

The size of a website is only relevant to what it's about. If you've got a site about one product and you've got 100,000 pages.. it doesn't really make sense - why would it need that many? If, however, I was setting up a site about 10 products, for example, I'd aim for 1 information page about each product, and that info page would link to a review page (making 2 pages for each product). The pages would be a MINIMUM of 400 words.

The wonder wheel is good, but there are SO SO many keyword tools out there providing different insights - my advice is NEVER just use one, your research stage should be one of the biggest stages of your website building.

Hope that helps

I can't give you a guide - people make money off those on here, and I'd be selling myself (and them) short by doing that lol... that is meant in all due respect, mind you. If it was right for me to do so, I would give you a full guide.

What I can say though, is when I read 'software' I immediately thought 'product' and 'sale' - and that led me to think 'reviews' and lots of them.

Google loves sending people to a website then not seeing them return to Google again soon after (if they do, it means they haven't found what they're looking for). So - make sure you get that bounce rate down and give your visitors exactly what they want... then they'll give you what you want (which I assume is money!).

Cheers, hope that helps

Darn right there! Google doesn't like high bounce rates so get that right down and the rest is - as you said - easy

Less automation, more human interaction imo. You're leaving out guest blog posts, guest articles and link exchanges, which really is the staple of linkbuilding. That's just my take.

Hey,

You seem to be using a nice spread of techniques there - and that should continue to help you maintain site and domain strength.

My advice this issue:

You've got several sites ranking reasonably well - but NOT high enough.

What you should do is pick the site you think could make the most money and focus on that one first, get that one ranking up there, then - and only then - move onto your next one.

Of course, don't ignore your other sites while focusing - but don't spread your efforts out too thinly.

You need to see where your competitors are getting their links from. You should also get in touch with personal trainers, gyms, etc... get your site out there and get the brand heard of. You need links from these guys, and you need to provide a super-resource for people wanting to lose weight.

So, continue what you're doing to all sites on a steady level, but one-by-one get your sites up there. Really get into the research and development - is there anything you could add to your site to make it a better resource for your readers? Google wants to send them there and not see them come back to search for other sites... Google wants to send people to the ultimate resource - and that's what you need to master. You'll find that rankings come much much much easier then, trust me!

Hope that helps!

Hey lukyjoe,

Firstly, when evaluating the competition you've got to treat it as though you're compiling a file on someone - like special services work lol - it needs to be full of detail.

From there, I do indeed look at quality of backlinks and content - I work out their KW densities on every page on their site, I so site word counts... all sorts.

When I determine quality of backlinks I have access to several tools I use to work out how much 'juice' is passed down from certain links. I would love to share these tools and my methods of working link-value out, but I will be using it when I begin doing my self-employed work.. so I'd be selling myself short!

You've got to think about what google will think about each link - ask yourself is it natural, is it beneficial? Does it just look 'thrown' on there?

When it comes down to adwords and webmaster tools - I do use these, everyone should, but don't take the information as 'bible' - the key to research is to get information from multiple sources and analyze them yourself. You'll get into a pattern of doing it and it'll become much easier!

And as for creating a WSO and selling it - if there is demand for a guide I have no problems putting together a chunky guide (say a 30-day guide or something like that), but it'll take me a little while because I'm all over the place at the moment, travelling to and fro, etc. - But yes, I would be willing to share my knowledge and techniques with everyone at some point in the near future! I'll keep you updated

Cheers

Hey,

No need to apologise - so much to read through that it's sometimes hard to keep track!

Well, software-wise, 'big' agencies differ really, some out-source their work to places like India, while others have their own software developed.

Some places use things like Xgen, others don't use 'software' at all, and have simple excel sheets to categorise their link targets/plans... it's what works for different people I guess.

There are tonnes of reviews online for all sorts of software, I'm not going to 'plug' any particular one here because to be honest, I used to get other people to do the software work for me while I got stuck into the real SEO!

Setting up on my own - I thought it would be incredibly daunting, but it's actually REALLY exciting, I've got so many ideas, so many plans - I just can't wait to 'cut the ribbon' and start things up. I'm still a few steps away from being ready to open the floodgates (so to speak), but I'm open to helping people out here and there.

I've not actually got my personal website set up yet - and there's good reason for this lol - I've got a few clients waiting in the wings, so word of mouth is playing a massive part for me at the moment. I know having a personal website is important, but I will take my time with this, because word of mouth is often more valuable than just words on a page!

So what do you do in Liverpool then? Was round that neck of the woods recently!

This question is similar to 'the meaning of life' question lol - the answer is endless. It depends what site it is, what niche, how competitive, visitor volume, local searches, content possibilities...

The key to knowing ALL of that is research - I cannot stress how important this is. You see so many sites ranking poorly because the research stage has evidently been skipped.

Research should be on-going, too, because just like the weather, things always change!

Hey,

Well, local SEO is (saying this holding my breath) easier to rank with.

Here's why:

If you're tying to rank a hairdresser's website in london, for example, it's easier to rank 'hairdresser in london' than it is for just 'hairdresser'.

That's the key difference, I feel, between local and regular SEO campaigns. You get a much more targeted customer doing local SEO.

As for link building when doing local SEO. I always go for sites LOCAL to the client. So, I'd go for sites from businesses/people/services within london. Get on london directories, etc.. you see what I mean.

If you try to rank a local company using 'international' links, it won't really work as well as ranking a local company using 'local' links - it's all about relevance.

Reviews, you're right, they play a big part - so if you're in touch with a local company you're going have to get creative with your SEO. Here's how I would do it:

Go into the local business, get to know the manager. Print out some cards you can put on the counter so customers take them. On these cards would be the company's website... and I'd set up a competition for people who went online to review the company (they post a review, they get entered into the competition). It's down to the company to keep their customers happy - you're just getting some great free reviews there...

Anyway - that's just an idea, and if I keep talking I'll just waffle on.

Just keep the links for local companies LOCAL.

You're welcome

Some companies I have dealt with in the past do use SEO services - but everyone prefers different ones (for different reasons) Linkvana was popular with more of the companies, though, so maybe there's something to be said there? Just be careful you don't dilute your backlinks with vana links, etc..

When I say ranking too highly too quickly - yes, this is entirely based on the niche - but just ask yourself what's natural before hammering links into something. I cannot overuse the word natural, but believe me, so many SEOs fail to keep their campaigns looking natural! they get complacent and lazy and outsource everything and that's when it goes wrong (if you outsource to one particular company (and ten other people outsource to them too) you'll all get similar links.. so just be careful.

And you're right about the pages vs. sites thing - but what you've got to bear in mind is that even if your one page of clean content stays and the rest get kicked, your domain and site will have lost A LOT of trust - so it would just take a cleaner site to come along to push you down the rankings.

My advice is - if you want to make money online, don't get lazy and duplicate, put your heart and soul into it - put in what you expect to get back. If you cut corners, you won't do as well as you could!

Thanks

Don't go aggressive because you'll lose ranking - you should just play it steady. Article placements (unique content on clean sites), add content to your site - let it grow!

Look at the competition and out-do them.

It's a patience game while your domain gains a bit of trust - you don't want to go too hard now and get red flagged!

Cheers

Your domain extension won't affect your keywords.

Does your site have any pages, or is it just a WP blog? If it's not got pages, you need to create a static homepage and apply your posts to a different page.

Optimize your HP for your KW - try and write about 1,000 words - the health niche needs big content to rank well.

Give that a go - it should help soon!

That's the key to outsourcing - finding reliable people you can trust!

I've seen how badly wrong outsourcing can go - some sites just become messy and lazy with their work and give it to anyone looking for a dollar!

And you're right - if you want good services, you need to be prepared to pay.

Thanks for your input

Hey,

Well I was involved in 'peripheral' SEO for about 2 years while I worked in a marketing department - this is when I first took interest in the industry. From there, I did a lot of reading, researching, following and testing in my own time until I felt confident enough to label myself an 'SEO' as such. (I never label myself as 'just' an SEO, though, because I've done a lot of work on coversions and I worked as a writer, too!).

Once I had 'labelled' myself I was in SEO for about 3 years.

The thing is, though, what was relevant when I first started isn't so relevant now - and that's what I find exciting about the industry. I know people who've only been in SEO for a year, but have spent all their spare time researching and involving themself in SEO all the time... they're pretty clued up to it now!

Cheers

Hey,

Get your site FULL of unique and great interesting content before you start anything - you need to have something worthy of linking to before you start linking to your site.

Link to your homepage to start with - then do a few specifics to your sub-pages to show Google their importance.

Just keep it steady but gradually increase the intensity of links (don't go too heavy too soon is the key).

It really depends on your site/niche/market... that will determine your speed!

Don't be tempted by 'high-authority' sites that aren't relevant. Though they are tempting and look really good, every spammer in the land will go after these. Go for relevance, not greed.

It's not that it will do 'no good', it's just that there are better ways to get it done. Read through this thread, there are some great tips on it - my only advice is to review your on-site SEO and get loads of content on there.

Hey, thanks very much.

I've had a few members PM me actually asking if I would consider writing a WSO about long-term success with your website, and I will indeed do this - but only when I'm settled down in a few weeks.

You should check that out when I do it - I'm all about the long-term success of sites. By all means, we love a quick win, but you can make so much more money with stability and site strength!

I give it about 6 months to see 'real' steady rankings from a site - that is a long time, but I only quote that length to compensate for any potential algorithm changes, any ranking walls - when the page just won't go higher - and on-going research to out-do competitors.

It may be the case that the rankings come after 1 month, and I have had that several times, but I like to rank other pages of the site too - because it adds so much strength and trust to the domain.

One of the projects I took on a while ago was making a couple of hundred dollars a month, I did SEO for them for 4 months and graudally increased their rankings and brand image and by the time the 4 months was up, they went from couple of hundred to couple of thousand... in just 4 months. It was a massive win!

Your user-generated content on other sites is good - it shows activity and if it's all positive that will help with visits.

You should continue with SEO, perhaps look into PRs to get your brand strength up (to compete with big companies) and really clean up your image. Contact local review sites and get links... just get yourself out there!

When it comes to determining the size of the mountain you're about to climb, I can tell you that. I've done plenty of market reviews and SEO plans with cost-ranking ratios, etc. It's pretty simple when you know how - I could teach you, but I couldn't do that for free because it's quite a big process (but once you know how, you could save a lot of money). PM me on that subject if you're interested and we can talk it through!

Hope that helps!

Hi SEOsolo, I have a question!

My offline retail business ceramicbusiness[dot]com sells a range of high-quality ceramic products (60+ in total)*. These products span multiple (6+) categories such as ceramic kitchenware, ceramic tiles. In addition, the material ceramic itself has multiple (4-5) names people use to search for it, such as ceramics, and polyceramic.

We want to start a strong eCommerce campaign. Based on Keyword research competition is medium to low, and because they were unregistered we have acquired 15+ domain names which cover all of the permutations I have outlined above, ceramics[dot]com, polyceramics[dot]com, ceramickithcenware[dot]com, etc. All these domains combined represent about 15,000+/month exact keyword match google searches.

What would you recommend if our sole focus was long-term building of our online sales? We don't manufacture any items, our selling point is nobody else has built such a diverse range of high-quality ceramic products.

Do I focus on our core domain for the highest volume keyword, and build subpages for each speciality listed above? Or utilise all of our domains? If so, as feeder sites, or individual eCommerce sites selling the specific products? Or something completely different?

Thanks, this is a wonderful thread and I applaud you for being so generous.

You're right - it's about building relationships.

To those of us who don't like talking to people and getting out there, as such, you could just draft an email to send out to a lot of people. It's not hard, if you REALLY want to rank a site, you'll be able to send an email! I guess with the first success, it will bring confidence.

You're also heading along the right lines about Google devaluing certain links - they'll start with blog comments in my opinion, they're just getting too spammy!

Hey,

I can't tell you that lol, that's practically giving away money! To rank for a lot of keywords, you're going to need a very very very very strong site. No dupe content, no spam, just a very good, interesting and useful site.

If you want help working (actually doing the work), you'll have to hire someone, but you should start by strengthening your site. Really clean it up and have NO duplicate content on it.

Cheers.

I honestly don't think you'll be able to 'add' content to their site.

If you're selling some nike shoes as an affiliate your best bet is to write a load of reviews about different nike shoes - rank long-tail on loads of different types (even old ones), and you will generate traffic - from there you'll need to get the traffic clicking through to the 'current' shoes, so they can buy, and you can make money!

Simple, as it sounds, but a little harder to execute as it's such a BIG brand!

You'll need to rank for "[type of nike shoe] reviews" to stand a chance of getting decent traffic!

Good luck!

Just reading this thread - some interesting stuff SEOsolo!

I have my own techniques, but one of the easiest ways is to just follow their backlinks - see where they take you.

Also - watch their site closely to see any small changes they're making, any tweaks or any new content going on.

You'll know what you're looking for when you see it, you've just got to watch them!

You should firstly try to get these links removed - but that can be tricky.

Easiest option is to start again (if it's a new site). There are 301 alternatives, of course.

It's difficult to say really, just do your best to get rid of them. Failing that, you could either set up a new site or get some monster links to 'cancel' the bad ones out... they'll always be there though!